Erin Knight - Perfect Strangers - an unputdownable read full of gripping secrets and twists

BASE CAMP 1

Her hands felt clammy. She could do this. She would do it. She just had to take her time, decide on her next step. Just like Jenny said.

Baby steps, Isobel. One at a time. You feel you’ve a mountain to climb, let’s break that big, horrible bugger down into base camps, shall we? Now, Isobel . . . what are your goals? What’s waiting for you at Base Camp 1?

Therapists loved analogies. Isobel could’ve pulled a great lesson plan together for her Year 7s just borrowing from Jenny’s endless repertoire of similes and metaphors, only she didn’t have any Year 7s now. Baby steps . Anything was possible long term – getting back to work was absolutely realistic. Isobel hadn’t believed that any more than Jenny had.

A sharp voice shattered her thoughts. ‘Evie! Put down that mobile phone and tell me what I’ve done to this nightmarish till again, it’s spitting receipts!’

The pretty teenager hovering behind the counter had the same sunkissed curls as her mother. They both smiled a greeting as the man with the coupé made it to the welcoming display of pastries and vintage-style coffee-grinding equipment at the counter. The woman who’d served Isobel, with the wide smile and violently swinging earrings, pulled a pencil from her own piled up curls. She jabbed at the till with it as if poking a dead animal for signs of life. ‘Morning, Jon! Give us a sec, I’ve flummoxed the only thing back here I absolutely can not manage without.’

‘Thanks a lot, Mum.’

‘Sorry, Evie, but my mental arithmetic really is hideous. This flipping till!’

Isobel tuned out their conversation. She rubbed clammy hands over her jeans and tried blowing the tension away, the way Sophie had shown her two nights ago while she’d packed her holdall and committed to climbing that mountain. Listen to me, Is, I know what I’m talking about. I delivered Ella in the back of Mum’s Nissan, I’m the master of steady breathing. If you feel panicky, blow! Sophie had finished demonstrating the Lamaze technique before reverting to chewing her nails, recapping all the reasons Isobel shouldn’t leave.

Soph hated all this, but she’d like Coast at least. Sophie was into industrial light fittings and the beach-house look. She’d tried something similar at their parents’ semi. I want Sophie to feel at home, love , their mum had argued with Dad. Let her decorate the conservatory, this is our daughter and granddaughter’s home now too . Just while she worked off the store card balances that had seen her default on enough rent payments to trigger the eviction notice. Sophie would learn one day. Impulse cost.

Isobel traced the view stretching over the endless Atlantic and back down over the intimate clusters of gallerias and boutique bistros nearly enclaving the lobstermen working away on the trawlers. So far Fallenbay was living up to its online reputation. Like Sophie, their folks would love Coast too, would love Fallenbay. They would love it, but they would never know. Not that Ella could buy a four-scooper from the beach’s ice-cream hut or that Coast felt more like a cosy lookout point than an eatery (the universe having another laugh). They would never know because when the time came for truths, there would be nothing to tempt the Hedleys to visit this place, the bay of the fallen. Which was good. Because Fallenbay wasn’t a place to make memories. It was the place to bury them.

2

‘Ladies! Beautiful morning, isn’t it? Americano please. Woah, flapjack’s looking good, Cleo. Can I get a slice, for Sarah and Max too?’

Cleo hoped he didn’t mistake the flush in her cheeks for schoolgirl blushing. She always blushed a little for Jonathan Hildred. It was completely involuntary, like one of those hiccupping fits she sometimes suffered, or a flickery eyelid. She definitely didn’t fancy Jon – or no more than was acceptable for your best friend’s fiancé anyway. Jon just had that Daniel Craig thing going on, and a grin that could send grown women back to their teenage selves with little more than a compliment about a flapjack. He was going to look phenomenal in his wedding suit; Cleo could see him now, adjusting his cuffs at the altar, Bond style.

‘Sarah and Max on the beach?’ she trilled. Fancy schmancy . Of course she didn’t fancy Jon. Half the time she wondered if she was more excited about Sarah marrying Jon next summer than Sarah herself.

‘Nope, meeting them in half an hour at the . . .’ Jon dramatically fanned his hands, ‘. . . Marine Dinosaur Exhibition!’

‘Where?’

‘The aquarium. Max’s running an obsession with Godzilla. Sarah’s hoping to find something green and scaly in there to float his boat.’

‘I’ll get Mr Hildred’s Americano, Mum.’ Evie’s eyes were wide and lovely, and caked in too much bloody make-up again.

‘No! Don’t move from that spot until I can ring up an order, Eves. Kids are so techno-savvy nowadays, aren’t they, Jon?’ She banged the coffee grinds from the filter and a baby startled at the noise. Sam was always telling her she was too heavy-handed. This from an ex-boxer with knuckles like knees.

Evie made something bleep. ‘There,’ she declared. ‘I came, I saw, I conquered.’

‘Julius Caesar,’ nodded Jon. Cleo fought not to mirror his smile.

Evie offered her smile freely. She looked like Cleo’s little girl again when she smiled like that. Cleo felt a burst of pride then resumed mourning the daughter who’d moved aside so this tempestuous, sulky, make-up-abusing pain-in-the-bum could steal her spot at the dinner table. She gave Evie a quick shoulder squeeze. ‘Well done, trouble. Heading for a B in maths too next month, aren’t you, my brilliant girl? There you go, Jon. Americano. Godzilla, did you say? You know, if Max wants to meet a grouchy green reptilian, I have a lounge-lizard with a snotty nose at home he can try shifting off my sofa.’

‘Mum,’ Evie groaned. ‘Dad can’t help getting ill when he’s laying bricks in the rain.’

‘Oh, Evie, I’m only playing.’ She wasn’t. ‘But I could’ve done with him looking at that microwave before he caught the lurgy. Keep your eye on it today, I think the timer’s on the blink.’

Jon handed Evie his money. ‘Makes for a nice change hearing one of our young adults defending their parent, Cleo. Usually it’s the parents who won’t hear a bad word. Loyalty’s admirable, right, Evie? Shows maturity.’

‘Right, Mr Hildred,’ beamed Evie.

‘And a B in GCSE maths? Great stuff. You know there are extra evening revision classes if you fancied really stretching yourself? Maybe see about pushing for an A if you’re up for a challenge? Elodie Inman-Holt’s enrolled; you two are pals aren’t you, you could buddy-up?’

Cleo felt a mild stab of competition. On Evie’s behalf, obviously. Why would Elodie even need extra classes? She was fluent in everything already. Languages . . . music . . . Elodie was like her God-awful mother Juliette, fluent in bloody life. And just to make things worse – okay, probably the part that really got up Cleo’s nose – Juliette’s daughter was one of the few teenage girls at that high school who didn’t feel compelled to daub herself with those horrendous eyebrows Evie couldn’t slather on garishly enough. Harry had recently made the mistake of comparing his twin sister to Sam the Eagle from The Muppets . Evie had given him a dead leg for it.

‘Are you running revision classes, Mr H?’

Jon patted his hard, flat stomach. ‘Not a chance, Evie. I need my evenings to keep the middle-aged spread at bay.’ Cleo could vaguely remember Sam’s washboard stomach. Vaguely.

‘You look fine to me, Mr Hildred.’ Was Evie blushing?